Premiership leaders Chelsea will take on fifth-placed Arsenal in the London derby at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side will look to clinch full points against Arsene Wenger’s Gunners, who will be out to avoid third successive league defeat following their losses against Aston Villa and Manchester City.

The Blues can ill afford any slip-up with the title race neck and neck as Liverpool, who have same number of points as the west London club, take on West Ham United on Monday. Last weekend, both joint-leaders were involved in separate goalless draws.

Chelsea have a long list of injury-enforced absentees with Juliano Belletti (ankle), Michael Essien (knee), Ricardo Carvalho (knee) and Franco di Santo (hamstring) out with Joe Cole likely to be forced to miss the game due to an ankle injury against Bordeaux in Champions League 1-1 draw on Wednesday. Didier Drogba is banned.

Arsenal, who won 1-0 against Dynamo Kiev in midweek, are set to be boosted by the return of Emmanuel Adebayor, Bacary Sagna (both ankle) and Samir Nasri (knee). However, they have lost Abou Diaby (abdominal strain). Kolo Toure (calf), Theo Walcott (shoulder) and Emmanuel Eboue (knee) are sidelined.

Brazilian World Cup-winning coach Scolari has refused to write off the Gunners and is excited to face Wenger’s side and expects a fantastic game.

He said: "You're only champions at the end of the last game. This is the first time I'll have played against Wenger - he's been my friend for ten or 12 years now.

"I met him for the first time in Japan and we are big friends. I like him as a coach. If I chose five coaches in the world as the best, he'd be one of the five.

"His team plays football, so it's difficult to win. They play beautiful football. I watched their game against Manchester United and it was one of the best games in the Premier League. This game against Chelsea will be like that as well.

French tactician Wenger has insisted that his side can beat the west-Londoners, who lost their unbeaten run in the league at home earlier in the season when they were beaten by Liverpool.

Wenger said: "We are written off. You cannot say when you are 10 points behind that we are favourites to win the championship, but you can say as well the only way we can get back into it is to believe we can.

"That is why we want to go into this game on Sunday by believing we can beat them because we know we can. That is all you want your players to do."

The teams

Chelsea (from): Cech, Cudicini, Hilario, Bosingwa, Ferreira, Alex, Terry, Ivanovic, Bridge, A Cole, Lampard, Deco, Ballack, Obi, Kalou, Malouda, Anelka, Sinclair, Stoch, J Cole.

Arsenal (from): Almunia, Sagna, Silvestre, Gallas, Clichy, Nasri, Denilson, Fabregas, Vela, van Persie, Adebayor, Fabianski, Song, Djourou, Ramsey, Bendtner, Gibbs, Hoyte, Wilshere.